The ongoing saga about Buttons and his hair is fast becoming gargantuan. He drops fur everywhere he goes; clouds of loose white fluff swirl in the breeze and gently come to rest on every possible surface.
I have noticed that this moult is different. He is losing clumps of thick, matted hair. These are what I call felt, because it is exactly that, rubbed clumpy hair that would make a great piece of fabric.
I brushed him and dreadlocks of felt worked their way to the surface. Huge, tight clumps that nearly had a life of their own dropped to the ground. I had never seen anything like it. Nor, had I heard about it before. I mean, it’s not like I don’t groom him – I brush him twice a day when he is moulting badly – but this was strange.
I realised that his undercoat was thick, too thick. These felty-clumps were his undercoat. When I rub my hand through his fur it is nearly as thick as wool. He is a woolly jumper.
So, my next journey is to figure out what to do about his coat.
Brushing him removes his guard hairs, which is good, because he spreads them around in a cloud of snow everywhere he goes. The clumps of felt are much thicker and dense.
It was then I realised that the felt is on his backside, where he sits. The felt is also on his tail… Then I put two and two together… Buttons is not overweight and can’t reach his bum to get to the caecotrophs, he can’t reach it because the felt pulls his skin and it hurts to bend. I have to remove the felt from his back end and that should help him.
See, the thing is, Buttons is a mix breed. When I picked him up from his breeder, she told me he had lop, angora, flemish, dwarf and plenty of other things in his genetics. Suddenly it clicked – his hair is a lot like angora, but about 4cm long, rather than 10cm+ or more like an angora rabbit.
The Comb
If you’ve been reading this for a while, you’d know that I’ve been looking for a brush to help Nova with her moulting. No brush I have tried grooms her properly.
While I was in a variety store I found these combs. I knew they were designed for removing fleas, but I thought I’d give them a go.
After all, I had nothing to lose.
I tried it on Nova, it worked a treat!
I had to be careful to not pull her hair too hard, because it would hurt. She enjoyed being groomed with the comb.
I then tried it on Buttons and more felty-clumps came out. Perfect!
I then studied Buttons’ felty-bum and started to trim it with rounded scissors (from this pack). He had huge clumps of felt everywhere, more than what he needed for comfort and protection.
I spent more than an hour trimming away his felt, careful not to cut or hurt him.
Once I was finished his butt looked funny, but that didn’t matter.
The next job was to remove the huge clumps of felt from his tail. I realise that they need padded protection on their bum and tail, but Button’s felt clumps were too big and they were stopping him from being able to clean himself properly.
I then found this pet grooming vacuum contraption. After a but of research I found that some are noisy, others aren’t; some come with a blow dryer, others don’t; some work well on rabbits, others don’t. I’ll have to do more research about them, but I will end up getting one for Buttons.